I’ve been a New Yorker subscriber since grad school, when they made it required reading. Thanks to a commute that was roughly one New Yorker long each week, i was mostly able to keep pace with the magazine. Until I left my downtown job. Since then, they’ve been piling up and once in a while I have to go on a New Yorker raid and burn through the accumulated issues. Fortunately, I hate the fiction (don’t tell anyone), which slightly reduces the amount of time dedicated to each one.
It’s long been my only magazine subscription, and I am proud to support their fine work. The Receptionist is a memoir by Janet Groth is about the 20 years she spent as a receptionist for the magazine. I am really looking forward to the insider’s view of this amazing magazine and the people who put it together between 1957 and 1978 (Groth’s tenure). I’ll bet it was as weird as it was wonderful.
I’ll ask for comments towards the end of August.
- Visit the website of author Janet Groth.
- Here’s a post about it in the New Yorker of all places.
- Would love to know what else you’re reading. Please comment below or…
- Join BookGraf on Facebook: Good books? Great company? No effort? Exciting typos? What’s not to like?
AS you know, I learned to read by reading the New Yorker, because my mother is a lifetime subscriber. I started by reading the cartoon captions (I didn’t get them then and I still don’t), then the restaurant and music reviews (short ones up front) then the art and movie reviews (longer ones in the back) then Talk of the Town then finally whole articles. Now I compulsively read every single word, excepting ads, even if the thing I am reading about is a review of an obscure German film revival in About the Town that has happened already. Plus: “Musicians and nightclub proprietors lead complicated lives. You may want check ahead to confirm engagements.” (It was “call ahead” till like, a year ago.)